Chemometrics is the application of mathematical or statistical methods to chemical data. The International Chemometrics Society (ICS) offers the following definition:

Chemometrics is the science of relating measurements made on a chemical system or process to the state of the system via application of mathematical or statistical methods.

ICS logo.

Chemometric research spans a wide area of different methods which can be applied in chemistry. There are techniques for collecting good data (optimization of experimental parameters, design of experiments, calibration, signal processing) and for getting information from these data (statistics, pattern recognition, modeling, structure-property-relationship estimations).

Chemometrics tries to build a bridge between the methods and their application in chemistry.

Analytical chemistry is one of the main application areas of chemometrics. The premium journal of the field, Analytical Chemistry, publishes bi-annual reviews on chemometrics.

The first of these reviews (authored by Bruce R. Kowalski) was already published in 1980, which is clear evidence that chemometric methodology is firmly rooted in analytical chemistry.

Chemometry

Chemometrics is also known as chemometry, but to a (much) lesser extent. This is nicely illustrated by the number of hits obtained in a Google search of the web using 'chemometrics' and 'chemometry' as key words. It is also interesting to compare the search results for related fields:

Number of hits in a Google search of the web on 16 January 2006.

The rather extreme international preference for the term chemometrics is hard to understand, considering that national preferences are more often than not the translation of the term chemometry. Below is an extensive sample from mostly European languages:

Chemometrics

Japanese () and Persian ()

Kémométrik

Sundanese ()

Khemometrika

Russian ()

Chemiometria

Greek () and Italian ()

Chemometria

Hebrew () and Polish ()

Chemometrie

Czech (), Dutch (), German () and Slovakian ()

Chimiométrie

French () and Romanian ()

Hemometria

Bulgarian ()

Hemometrija

Latvian () and Macedonian ()

Kemomeetria

Estonian ()

Kemometri

Danish (), Swedish () and Turkish ()

Kemometria

Albanian (), Finnish () and Hungarian ()

Kemometrija

Croatian ()

Kemometrijo

Slovenian ()

Kjemometri

Norwegian ()

Quimiometria

Catalan () and Portuguese ()

Quimiometría

Spanish ()

Róbert Rajkó is thanked for the "possibly correct translation and phonetic transcription" of the Russian term (Хемометрика). Any errors and omissions remain our responsibility though.

It is therefore most likely that the preference will shift a little bit in favor of chemometry. Anyway, just decide for yourself what's in a name!

Update of 8 May 2007: It is important to note that the above reports on a rather limited search. The definitive work on this topic has now been published: